QUINCY – Five businesses on the Southern Artery were evacuated and forced to temporarily close Wednesday following a pair of bomb threats linked to an apparent extortion scheme.

Quincy police said they are investigating bomb threats that were phoned in to two businesses – CVS and Punjab Cafe – shortly before 1 p.m. Bomb-sniffing dogs swept the area around the two establishments, which are across the street from each other, and found no suspicious items, police said.

Detective Lt. John Steele said the threats resembled an extortion scheme in which a caller demands money from a business, threatening to detonate a bomb if the employees don’t pay. The scheme has been attempted at dozens of stores across the U.S. in recent years.

Steele said this was the first time he has seen this scheme in Quincy, meaning that businesses in the city or in surrounding towns may be targeted soon. He said the callers typically target a geographic area, hoping someone will fall for the hoax, then move on to another area.

No employees wired money to the caller Wednesday, but Steele said five businesses were negatively affected by having to shut their doors. Besides CVS and Punjab Cafe, Papa John’s, Old Colony Liquors and Boston Audio Design were forced to close for at least an hour. Police did not leave the area until 3:15 p.m.

“That’s the real economic loss here,” Steele said. “You have five businesses that have had to close their doors to be safe and cautious because we have to assume that (the threat) could be real until we can be certain that it isn’t. So all of these businesses now have lost business.”

Several employees from Punjab Cafe waited in the Old Colony Liquors parking lot off Pond Street while police led bomb-sniffing dogs in and around the CVS building and the block of four businesses across the street from CVS.

“I was just cooking and we had to shut down. We’re $500 or $600 out now,” Amandip Singh, a chef at Punjab Cafe for 15 years, said, lamenting that customers left without having to pay their bills.

Two restaurants were forced to shut down during their usual lunchtime rush.

“We had to shut off our pizza that was still in the oven for pickup,” Hoan Chau, a Papa John’s delivery driver from Wollaston, said.

Steele said the person who called in the threats was a male with a foreign accent that sounded Indian or Pakistani.

Anyone with information about the threats should call Quincy detectives at 617-745-5764.

Steele said police will likely work with state and federal authorities in the investigation, given that similar threats have been made elsewhere. In 2007, for example, the FBI looked into extortion-related bomb threats to more than 26 stores and banks in at least 17 states, according to the Associated Press.

Page 2 of 2 - Patriot Ledger reporter Natalie Ornell contributed to this story. Patrick Ronan may be reached at pronan@ledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @PRonan_Ledger.